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RCC Presentation

Presentation of the Roscoff Culture Collection

The Roscoff Culture Collection (RCC) is located at the Roscoff Biological Station in Brittany, France. The Roscoff Biological Station is one of the oldest marine biological laboratories in the world and is jointly operated by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Sorbonne Université (SU). The RCC is a core service of the FR2424 (Research Federation) of the Roscoff Biological Station and is closely linked to the Ecology of Marine Plankton (ECOMAP) team which is part of the UMR7144 Research Unit.

We maintain about 4,600 strains of marine phytoplankton with a traditional emphasis on picocyanobacteria (in particular Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus), picoeucaryotes (Pelagomonas, Bolidomonas, Ostreococcus), diatoms and Haptophyta (in particular coccolithphores). In recent years the collection has diversified to include more strains of bacteria, microalgal viruses and macroalgae.

Most of our strains were isolated from various oceanic regions by personnel or students from the Roscoff Biological Station, while some were obtained from other culture collections or research teams. Most are available for distribution, but some (for example strains in the process of being taxonomically described) are not openly distributed. Please contact us if you are interested in specific phytoplankton groups not listed in the catalogue, because we may have recently isolated novel cultures that are not yet included in the catalogue.

The Roscoff Culture Collection participated in the regional Souchothèque de Bretagne initiative, funded by the French Contrat de Plan Etat-Région 2000-2006 and 2007-2011. The RCC is part of the EMBRC (European Marine Biology Resources Center) infrastructure. The RCC is registrered with the World Data Centre for Microorganisms (WDCM) as WDCM829, with the Registry of Biological Repositories and with the European Culture Collections Organization (ECCO).

All strains have a code number (RCCxxxx). Please use this number when referring to the strain in publications. The following citation should be used when refering to the Roscoff Culture Collection :